The Land is Mourning

SOMEONE wrote recently asking what my take is on the dead fish and birds showing up all over the world. First of all, this has been happening now in growing frequency over the past couple of years. Several species are suddenly "dying" in huge numbers. Is it the result of natural causes? Human invasion? Technological intrusion? Scientific weaponry?

Hear the word of the LORD, O people of Israel, for the LORD has a grievance against the inhabitants of the land: there is no fidelity, no mercy, no knowledge of God in the land. False swearing, lying, murder, stealing and adultery! In their lawlessness, bloodshed follows bloodshed. Therefore the land mourns, and everything that dwells in it languishes: The beasts of the field, the birds of the air, and even the fish of the sea perish. (Hosea 4:1-3)

Inmy 1997 television documentary, What in the World is Going On?, a Canadian weather analyst spoke about the bizarre extremes in weather. Thirteen years later, those extremes continue becoming more pronounced in every season.

In prayer, I sensed the Father say,

Do not doubt that I am speaking through the weather. Am I not the Lord of sun, snow, rain, and wind? All pour forth from my storehouse. But man himself can inhibit My natural order. Man himself can interfere with divine providence. Hence, I have forewarned from of old the "natural disasters" that would come because of man’s sin—because man himself would wreck the world that I created. Heaven itself is weeping at the awful sight: the power of man that strikes at the earth’s very foundations… The Divine Order has been interrupted and chaos and horror will follow man because he has left open the door to the spirit of death("Abaddon"; cf. Rev 9:11) Who can close the door but My Son? When the world cries out for Jesus, then He will come. Until then, death will be the companion of earth’s inhabitants. I grieve. Death is not my plan, but life. Come back to Me My children… come back to Me.

THE WRATH OF MAN

In a world where conspiracy theories swirl like a thousand dust clouds, it is difficult to ascertain just how much man is deliberately affecting his environment. There is no question that greed alone has done tremendous harm to the environment and our natural resources. The depletion of fresh water through careless pollution, the tainting of natural foods through genetic modification, the deluge of chemicals sprayed onto our crops, the pollution of air and water through manufacturing and refining, and the overfishing and dumping of toxins in our oceans and lakes is shocking and heartbreaking—much of it the result of shortcuts or negligence in the name of increased profits.

There is also another front on the attack against creation and life, and that is the deliberate use of weaponry and technology to alter our environment and the earth itself. This is not conjecture but a statement straight from the American govenment’s Department of Defense.

There are some reports, for example, that some countries have been trying to construct something like an Ebola Virus, and that would be a very dangerous phenomenon, to say the least… some scientists in their laboratories [are] trying to devise certain types of pathogens that would be ethnic specific so that they could just eliminate certain ethnic groups and races; and others are designing some sort of engineering, some sort of insects that can destroy specific crops. Others are engaging even in an eco-type of terrorism whereby they can alter the climate, set off earthquakes, volcanoes remotely through the use of electromagnetic waves. —Secretary of Defense, William S. Cohen, April 28, 1997, 8:45 AM EDT, Department of Defense; see www.defense.gov

And now we have the disturbing scenario unfolding before our eyes in the Gulf of Mexico. One theory as to why the entire globe is under the siege of extreme weather (in my province here in Canada, we were experiencing record rainfalls while a province over, they were stuck in a drought) is that the oil spill there has disrupted oceanic streams. Ocean currents, and the warm or cold water they carry, have an effect on the upper atmosphere. According to Dr. Gianluigi Zangari of the Research Division of the National Institute of Nuclear Physics at Frascati National Laboratories in Italy, there is evidence that the massive amount of oil spilled has caused a disruption of the Loop Current in the Gulf. This has resulted in a dramatic weakening in the vorticity (speed, flow, etc.) of the Gulf Stream and North Atlantic Current, and a reduction in North Atlantic water temperatures of up to 10 degrees Celsius.

As displayed by both by the sea surface maps and the sea surface height maps, the Loop Current broke down for the first time around May 18th and generated a clock wise eddy, which is still active. As of today the situation has deteriorated up to the point in which the eddy has detached itself completely from the main stream therefore destroying completely the Loop Current. ..It is reasonable to foresee the threat that the breaking of [such] a crucial warm stream as the Loop Current may generate a chain reaction of unpredictable critical phenomena and instabilities due to strong non-linearities which may have serious consequences on the dynamics of the Gulf Stream thermoregulation activity of the Global Climate.—Dr. Gianluigi Zangari, europebusines.blogspot.com

The result may be continued dramatic changes in global climate that will drive the world into a deep famine through destroyed crops and depleted food resources. Furthermore, some are asking the question if rare seismic activity in the east-central United States along the New Madrid fault line, which extends north of the Gulf of Mexic
o, isn’t the result, in part, due to the BP oil spill.

As I ponder this billowing Perfect Storm, I wonder if this is not why many are hearing the Lord calling us to "prepare," not only spiritually but physically? (See Time to Prepare).

LOST AT SEA

The ruling elite’s solution to the distressing destruction of creation is shallow if not counter-productive: cut "greenhouse gas" emissions. Pope Benedict, in an encyclical that breaks through the clamor of politics and special interest lobbyists, points to the very source of the environmental chaos around us: we have lost the sense of who we are.

When nature, including the human being, is viewed as the result of mere chance or evolutionary determinism, our sense of responsibility wanes. —POPE BENEDICT XVI, Encyclical Charity in Truth, n. 48

That is, if all we are as human beings is another set of molecules among a diverse set of molecules all randomly arranged in what we call the world today… then why not manipulate and glean from the planet what one can? Let the "survival of the fittest" take its course. Since morality is subjective in such a world view and rights are then determined, not by their involiability and intrinsic connection to natural law but according to the will of the ruling elite, the balance of creation is then subject to whoever holds the scales. Such an atheistic worldview has brought us to the brink of where we are today. Creation, including man himself, has become an object to be experimented with by those with enough money, power and audacity to confront the natural order.

If there is a lack of respect for the right to life and to a natural death, if human conception, gestation and birth are made artificial, if human embryos are sacrificed to research, the conscience of society ends up losing the concept of human ecology and, along with it, that of environmental ecology. It is contradictory to insist that future generations respect the natural environment when our educational systems and laws do not help them to respect themselves. —POPE BENEDICT XVI, Encyclical Charity in Truth, n. 51

And so, indeed, the Lord grieves as He leans over creation and perhaps the most destructive and wayward generation since the foundations of the world were laid.

The Lord’s question: "What have you done?", which Cain cannot escape, is addressed also to the people of today, to make them realize the extent and gravity of the attacks against life which continue to mark human history… Whoever attacks human life, in some way attacks God himself. —POPE JOHN PAUL II, Evangelium Vitae; n. 10

The "end times" seems to me to be less and less some kind of mystical period induced by God, but rather one that naturally flows from the wayward heart of man into his surroundings. The Final Confrontation of our era is simply the epic and conclusive battle between the culture of life and the culture of death. The destruction we are seeing and are going to will likely not be mysterious flames from Heaven or falling stars (at least not in the beginning) but rather the spiritual principal of man reaping what he has sown and the consequent rebellion of nature. The "labor pains" Jesus foretold are foremost the fruit of mankind ultimately rejecting the Gospel message and His Kingdom, and instead pursuing the creation of his own utopia, his own Garden of Eden. The disaster Christ speaks of is not thunderbolts sent from His own hand, but weapons of destruction crafted by man himself.

[In the children of Fatima’s vision] The angel with the flaming sword on the left of the Mother of God recalls similar images in the Book of Revelation. This represents the threat of judgment which looms over the world. Today the prospect that the world might be reduced to ashes by a sea of fire no longer seems pure fantasy: man himself, with his inventions, has forged the flaming sword. —Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (POPE BENEDICT XVI), The Message of Fatima, from the Vatican’s website

THE COMING AGE OF HOPE

The destruction of the "end times," then, is mostly God stepping back and permitting mankind to bring his rebellion to its apex—symbolized and incarnated most insidiously in the godless societal engineer Tradition calls the "Antichrist," that "son of perdition." It is then, when lawlessness reaches its climax, that the purifying hand of God will conquer the enemies of life, and the Spirit of God will pour forth and renew the face of the earth. It is then that the Church, reduced in number and purified by The Great Storm of our times, will spread her holy teaching to every nation and establish the Gospel to the far reaches of the earth as the rule of life. It is then that the Heart of Mary and the Heart of Christ will reign spiritually throughout the world for a time, fulfilling the promises of Sacred Scripture; then that the will of God will find fulfillment on earth as it is in Heaven; then that the culture of life will trample the culture of death, and the order of wicked men will collapse beneath the heel of the Divine order. It is then that the entire People of God—Jew and gentile—will be veiled as a Bride in all her splendor and beauty and made spotless and ready to receive the Lord when He returns on the clouds in glory.

There is much to come… and all lies within the plans of divine providence.

We are now standing in the face of the greatest historical confrontation humanity has gone through. I do not think that wide circles of the American society or wide circles of the Christian community realize this fully. We are now facing the final confrontation between the Church and the anti-Church, of the Gospel versus the anti-Gospel. This confrontation lies within the plans of divine Providence; it is a trial which the whole Church, and the Polish Church in particular, must take up. It is a trial of not only our nation and the Church, but in a sense a test of 2,000 years of culture and Christian civilization, with all of its consequences for human dignity, individual rights, human rights and the rights of nations. — Cardinal Karol Wojtyla (POPE JOHN PAUL II), Eucharistic Congress, Philadelphia, PA, August 13, 1976

When you see a cloud rising in the west you say immediately that it is going to rain—and so it does; and when you notice that the wind is blowing from the south you say that it is going to be hot–and so it is. You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of the earth and the sky; why do you not know how to interpret the present time? (Luke 1
2:54-56)

I have updated this writing which was formerly published under the title "Weather" on August 14th, 2010.